


Cold

by darwinsdonut



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Epsilon Unit, F/M, Super Angst, death scenes, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14559996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darwinsdonut/pseuds/darwinsdonut
Summary: Allison had never expected it to feel so cold.Church had always thought she was cold- until he felt a world without her.





	Cold

She had seen the end of time and had known the love of her life. 

Shadows gathered around her vision as she faded, the smoke hazed over the stars robbing her of one last comfort. And yet she couldn’t regret her death. She had died fighting, as she’d always known she would, and her sacrifice had saved lives. That was what mattered. 

But there were two thoughts that kept her hanging on, a desperate hope, a fleeting prayer for survival: 

Charlotte, and Leonard. 

Her daughter and husband needed her. Charlotte was as independent and strong as her mother already, growing and learning and staging fights in the living room. When she had the chance to be home, she spent most of her time watching the blossoming youth and vitality of her daughter. 

Leonard was another story. 

Leonard _needed_ her. She was his waking thought, and the dream that put him to sleep, and she knew that. She had read in his letters of how much he missed her. She had seen the pain in his eyes as goodbyes hovered on his tongue. She had told him not to say goodbye, because she hated goodbyes, but really… Because she knew she wasn’t coming back from this one. The stakes were too high, the generals growing desperate, and she’d known it would be her last mission. When your time came, you just knew. And she hadn’t been able to face him with that. 

The stars flickered as her throat filled. She wanted to cough but lacked the strength. 

She could no longer breathe. 

She closed her eyes and saw peridot green. 

The eyes of her daughter. 

The eyes of her lover. 

The only color that ever mattered. 

Peace cascaded around her, the fighting faded, the stars vanished from view. 

She’d thought the pain would cease, but for her last moments, all Allison felt was cold. 

* * *

Leonard had dreamt of many things in his life. 

He had dreamt of war and fighting. He had dreamt of love and childhood. Of age and youth, winter and summer, blood and medicine. He’d faced nightmares with the heart of a lion, because he had always known that when he woke, it would be to a world where she existed. 

Only now, that had been ripped away from him- and Leonard would never, ever dream again. 

His head pounded and his chest seized and his ribs split into minute fractures that no X-Ray could detect. He retreated into himself, till nothing existed but the cobwebs and chill. 

He had heard the words _the chill of death,_ but had always applied the fact that corpses lose their warmth. He had never thought it would mean that without her, he would never feel warm again. Without her, his daughter’s heated expressions would become pallorous and dull. Without her, the spark of ingenuity that had always driven him iced over, became embers and then ash, till everything was marred by that dreadful chill. 

When the years had passed and he had created Tex, he found in her the fleeting hope, the desperate wish, of having his Allison back. 

But Allison had been warm, and the metal that forged Tex was cold. 

* * *

Church would’ve crossed the seven hells, the Elysian Fields, any obstacle, to rescue Tex. 

He aged a thousand years in the canyon, and a thousand more in the Epsilon unit. Still, it was never enough to save her. Never, ever enough. 

And that was what it came down to: Tex was Tex, Allison was Allison, and nothing was ever enough to change her from who she was. Not even Church. 

He felt the hollowness of being the one to love more, and he felt the guilt at ever wanting her to change. As long as something to fight existed, Tex would be on the frontlines- and he could never ask her to falter from that. But sometimes, it hurt. 

This particular rendition of Blood Gulch, scenario thirty-three in the Epsilon unit, lacked the warmth and color he’d grown accustomed to. Empty bases and a wintry wind echoing through the canyon. It took him a week to discover what fragment of memory he lived in this time: a world without Tex. 

So far, the scenarios had demanded he bring her back, and find a way to make her stay. He had failed every time, and had learned since that she would always be his greatest failure. Because he was never enough to make her stay, and she would always somehow perish if they were together. And it became so hard to live without her. 

Flickers of memories echoed through the unit. 

A battlefield, smoke and gunpowder; a bloodied visor, cracked, crimson drops seeping through; hazy stars concealed by chaotic warfare. The canyon flickered back into view, and then out again. A dusty office, a black leather chair, a window overlooking a vacant backyard. A picture on the desk, a happy couple, blonde hair and vibrant smile, green eyes only seeing _her._

And Church felt, for the first time, all of the Director’s heartbreak. 

The grief flooded over him so immensely it toppled his legs; he fell to his knees on the Blue Base roof. A strangled cry emerged from him as the ache in his chest amplified- not an ache, a shatter. He felt it spiderweb along his ribs, minute fractures, he felt it fill his lungs with blood and bile, and he felt all the fury at the world and the pain of loss. 

He would never be able to make her come back. 

The world trembled, the cliffs crumbled, boulders turning to ash as they collided with the canyon floor. Church remained frozen on the roof. He would never be able to save her. 

He would never be able to save her. 

No one could save the dead. 

When the next chance came, he saw the only way out. 

He met her eyes through their visors and he felt a trio of words he wanted to say, and chose the trio of words he _needed_ to say: 

“I forget you.” 

And he knew he would never be warm again.


End file.
